Queen Esther & Human Trafficking

At the church where I serve as Youth and families pastor we have a contemporary service each Sunday at 9am. My wife and I lead worship almost every Sunday and once in a while I get the opportunity to speak. We are using “The Story Series” as our base for that service which is designed to walk us through the entire Bible in 31 weeks. This week was about the book of Esther, a woman of beauty and courage. I wanted to share my notes from yesterday’s message because I think this story needs to be shared over and over again.

Esther one of the few women in the Bible that gets her own book. Esther holds a very important place in Israelis history, a history that could have ended if it were not for this brave girl. But the story isn’t an easy one, there are some pretty messy things that happen in the story of Esther. Like many old testament stories we might be tempted to think simply of the kid version of the story where the king hand picks Esther the most beautiful woman in all the land, she saves her people from an evil man named Hamen and they live happily ever after.

If the story of Esther was not in the bible I’m sure it would be a Disney princess movie. From rags to riches, from being a foreigner to being the queen of all the land. But it might not meet the PG standards.

But lets look at the story, deep into the story and find what God’s plan in all this was.

Our story begins today with another woman on the throne, well not exactly on the throne because the king, king Xerxes was on the throne but his wife Vashti was queen.

King Xerxes loved to be extravagant and to party, who wouldn’t be when you are the ruler of 127 providences. To show off his wealth and extravagance Xerxes had a 180 day fair, like a worlds fair of sorts to display his kingdom to his VIP guests and to top it off he gave a grand banquet to all his guests that lasted 7 days. At this banquet was an open bar and all the wine anyone wished to drink.

So in other words it was a drunken mess, like a tailgate party that has gone on for way to long.

At the climax of drunken party Xerxes has this bright idea of inviting his wife to come parading her beauty before him and his All male guests.

But Vashti would not have any part of it. She would not come to the king’s request and entertain the watching lustful eyes of the drunken men. She would not do it. She would not disgrace herself.

That choice that Vashti made was a courageous one. To refuse the king could equal death. But she would not allow her self to simply be an item, a possession for the king to do with as he pleased.

She stood strong and because of her stand she was banished.

So with Vashti banished the King was in need of a new queen, and this for Xerxes was not something to be taken lightly. He sent men through out his 127 providences to bring to him young girls that might be suitable to be queen.

These girls had no choice in the matter they would be taken from their homes and brought to the palace to be placed under the care of a eunuch. They would be given spa treatments for months.

When I read this in Esther this past week it struck me that these girls in away were trafficked away from their families, their homes and forced and trained in the ways of pleasing the king.

In the past few years I have been made aware and learned a lot about human trafficking. Human trafficking, is modern day slavery. Repackaged and reformed to be as much out of the publics eye as possible, people are entrapped, enslaved, forced to do unspeakable things with little to no freedom or hope.

In third world countries the poor become indebted to the rich and can never repay, families are forced to sell their children as workers in factories or sending them to other countries because they are promised a new life and wealth but when they arrive they are tricked and coerced into sex slavery, prostitution and drug smuggling. They are stripped of their human rights, dignity and told they mean nothing to anyone.

This is a sad truth. Slavery didn’t end in 1865, it might have slowed down when the Civil War ended but it didn’t stop. And it’s not just in other countries across the sea it’s happening here in our own back yard. When I lived in Kansas I learned that Dodge City, which was 45 min away from my school, was a hot bed for Human trafficking, the stock yards were a prime spot for prostitution and drugs. The highway to dodge went right by my college… those people passed right by us and we didn’t even see them.

Even here in North Carolina human trafficking happens, my wife and I attended an event last Saturday to raise awareness for human trafficking and a girl at the event shared a little of her story, she grew up right here in Greensboro, NC, she wound up a victim of trafficking.

Human trafficking is as real and it happens, it even happened here in the story of Esther.

Esther was taken by Xerxes men to the palace to be beautifully prepared to meet the king. Their one job now was to please the king…

When I read this story I find this to be the lowest point in Esther’s life. She had been through a lot, from the lose of both her parents, to be raised by her uncle, to now being take from the only family she has and forced to compete to be queen.

Before Esther was taken her uncle Mordecai advised her to tell no one that she was a jew.

In a fairy tale sorta way Esther is chosen by the king to be his next wife, we don’t know really if Esther really wanted to be queen, but we do know she didn’t have a choice. The king thought she was beautiful so she became is queen.

Fortunately for her, her uncle Mordecai lived in the same city and so she didn’t lose all connection with him. In the story Mordecai find out about a plot to kill the king and saves the king. In response to Mordecai’s saving his life the king has his second in command Haman honor Mordecai. Haman happens however to hate Mordecai and so plots to kill Mordecai but thats not enough Haman wants to kill all the jews so he tricks the king into making a decree to have all the jews killed on a certain day.

But the king nor Haman knows that the new Queen is a jew.

In Esther 4 Mordecai makes Esther aware of whats going to happen to the jews and pleads with her to help them.

Esther 4

When Mordecai learned of all that had been done, he tore his clothes, put on sackcloth and ashes, and went out into the city, wailing loudly and bitterly. But he went only as far as the king’s gate, because no one clothed in sackcloth was allowed to enter it. In every province to which the edict and order of the king came, there was great mourning among the Jews, with fasting, weeping and wailing. Many lay in sackcloth and ashes.
When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress. She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them. Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.
So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews. He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.
Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said. Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”
When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”
So Mordecai went away and carried out all of Esther’s instructions.

I love Mordecai’s reply to Esther, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

For such a time as this. In the book of Esther God is not mentioned once but the evidence of God’s plan is blatantly present. Here in these first moments of Esther’s queenship she is faced with a great challenge, Haman has doomed all jews, but Mordecai sees something different, he sees hope, he sees the position that Esther is in was meant to help save the jews.

Esther new that there was a chance the king would not want to see her, that he could just as easily banish her as he had Vashti but she was willing to take the risk, she was willing to have courage and stand for her people who couldn’t stand for themselves.
we know from the rest of the story that the king does grant her life and he attends her little banquet twice, we learn that Esther has the courage and guts to tell the king what is troubling her and how Haman has set out to bring an end to her people. She has the courage to speak for those who could not.

Sadly the king couldn’t reverse the decree but he does allow the jews to defend themselves and on the day set out to be the destruction of the jews turns into a victory against their enemies.

What do we take away from this story?

How does this story of Esther effect our lives today?
When I read this story I see a young girl who stands up with courage and turns the worst possible thing into the best possible thing. Who doesn’t lose heart even though she went through one of the worst possibly life experiences ever, I see a girl that stands up and fights for those who cannot fight for themselves, literally.

So us?

What are we going to do?

I told you earlier about Human trafficking. I’ve told you about people that cannot speak for themselves, that are not free, that each day are fighting for their lives. But does that break your heart, because it does mine, it hurts to hear about children how are forced to work, kidnaped, sold and mistreated.

We have a choice, just like Esther had a choice, you are placed her in this time and in this place just for this. To stand up for others, to fight for freedom, it’s going to take courage, it may cost us much, maybe everything but is human life not worth that, is not each human being in need of love, worth giving love to simply because they are created by God.

My Heart breaks for humanity, for the broken and the captive.

If we are going to call ourselves followers of Jesus we have to carry on what he started… at the beginning of Jesus earthly ministry he read from Isaiah and it’s our challenge today.

Luke 4:18-19
“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

If we don’t know what to do find someone who does? If anything we need to speak for those who can’t.

Pass it on to the Next Generation

Yesterday I had the opportunity to preach while our senior pastor was any on vacation. Yesterday was also mothers day so I thought it would be appropriate to talk about passing on what we have learned and experienced to the Next Generation. The following is my notes from yesterday’s sermon, I hope that they help you be inspired to pass it on.

 

Pass it on to the Next Generation

“1 My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
3 things we have heard and known,
things our ancestors have told us.

4 We will not hide them from their descendants;
we will tell the next generation
the praiseworthy deeds of the Lord,
his power, and the wonders he has done.
5 He decreed statutes for Jacob
and established the law in Israel,
which he commanded our ancestors
to teach their children,
6 so the next generation would know them,
even the children yet to be born,
and they in turn would tell their children.

7 Then they would put their trust in God
and would not forget his deeds
but would keep his commands.
8 They would not be like their ancestors—
a stubborn and rebellious generation,
whose hearts were not loyal to God,
whose spirits were not faithful to him.”

-Psalm 78:1-8

 

To sorta set the table for the main points of the message today I wanted to tell you a little of my story, as a Son. I was born May 18^th, 1989 in a small hospital in Beech Grove, Indiana. I was the second child of my beautiful red haired Mother. Before I was born my parents had been married four years, my mom was a pharmacist assistant, but not long after I was born she made the choice to stay home and raise us kids. She made the choice early on that she wanted to teach us and I don’t know that she knew at the time but she was going to be the greatest influence any of us kids would have.

 

My mom told me those early years were scary, raising a boy was harder than raising my older sister. There was a lot of fear when I didn’t walk when I was suppose to, and when I got tested positive for ADHD, and when I had a hard time reading and writing, but mom never gave up. I remember struggling through each word of the easy reader book and how nothing sounded right yet her voice assured me I would get it, eventually. When I wanted to give up mom was always right there to encourage, even when it was obvious that my struggles were frustrating her.

My mom championed homeschooling, designing our lessons around how we learned as kids, with hands on science experiments in the kitchen right before lunch, to our individual reading and math lessons, to taking us to historical places all across the country so we didn’t just read about history but we got to experience it ourselves. Sometimes when my mom didn’t know something she would study long enough to be confident to teach us. She was dedicated to telling, teaching, showing and ultimately passing on what she had learned and experienced.

Over the past couple of years I have realized just how much my mom influenced everything about my life and if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t be here today. Really I wouldn’t be here.

See when I was four years old I remember sitting on my mom’s lap in the floor of our playroom while she read to me from my picture Bible that my parents had got me for my first birthday. She read to me about Jesus and after a few of my curious four year old questions, she explained how he died for me so that we could be friends with him. At four I didn’t have many friends other than my older sister and my imaginary friend johnny so I asked God to forgive me and I started a relationship, a journey with him. My mom was the one that really introduced me to Jesus, her confidence and willingness to share her experience with Jesus was passed on to me.

I wish I could say everything was a smooth ride from there but thats not really how life works. In middle school, through a lot of things that happened I started to doubt my faith and ran from God. But also during that time I was surprised how my mom didn’t give up on me even though I thought it was obvious she knew I was running. When I was sixteen I recommitted my life to following Jesus. My mom had always encouraged us kids to find ways to live out our faith and experience new things. That same year I had the opportunity to go to Brazil for the first time. That trip literally changed my life.

After the trip there was one night that I remember God clearly giving me a vision of people, their faces were hard to make out, many of them I did not know, but in that moment God told me “tell and lead the next generation”. For a long time I’ve wondered what that really means, why me?, but the last eight years I’ve noticed that moment has affected a lot of my life.

God used my mom to tell me about Jesus, her steady encouragement moved me to following Jesus.

Today I want to talk about passing it on to the Next Generation. There are a couple of things I want to talk about from the Psalms 78 passage. First, “How can we pass it on if we have not experienced?”. I think this is an honest and sometimes hard question. How can we really tell anyone about Jesus and what it means to follow him if we aren’t doing it ourselves?

Psalms 78:1-3 “Oh people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth in parables. I will utter hidden things, things from old- What we have heard and known, what our fathers told us.”

Just this last week we started a new series in youth group titled “Follow Me”. The first weeks lesson dealt with when Jesus called the disciples. He didn’t just say believe that I will save you and go on fishing. Jesus said “Come follow me”, come experience life with me, eat what I eat, go where I go, see what I see, be where I am and I will teach you from showing you and not just telling. Jesus wanted his disciples to experience. They left everything to follow him.

David Platt Writes, “Sadly today we have subtly and deceptively minimized what it means to follow Jesus. We have replaced challenging words like, “Leave everything and follow me” with trite phrases like:

-Ask Jesus into your heart.

-Invite Christ into your life.

-Pray this prayer after me, and you will be saved.

Should it alarm us that the Bible nowhere mentions such a prayer? Should it concern us that nowhere in scripture is anyone ever told to ask Jesus into their heart or invite Christ into their life?”

I think the reason that it is never minimized to that in scripture is because what Jesus calls us to is to “Follow Him”, to follow him means there is going to be risk, it can’t be minimized or boiled down to one simple pray and thats it. That may be the beginning but there is so much more to following Jesus.

If we aren’t really following Jesus how can we invite others to, and if we haven’t experienced him how can we pass it on?

 

Second, What is there to fear? Often times I think what holds us back from sharing our experience with Jesus is fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of saying the wrong thing, or fear of what others might think if they knew I was a Jesus freak.

Ps 78:4 “We will not hide them from their children, we will tell the next generation”

Growing up I was far to familiar with fear. It controlled my life. The first time my parents took me to the ocean I was almost two year old. They took me down toward the water and set me toward the waves. The water never really even got close to me but each time a wave crashed onto the beach I thought it was coming for me and the sound scared me to death. My parents told me I cried until they turned me around. If I couldn’t see it then it didn’t effect me… they hide the ocean from me!

 

I had a lot of fears like fear of flying, fear of Simi-trucks, fear of the dark, even fireworks on the forth of July scared me. But slowly as I grew older I realized fears didn’t have control over me. A lot of the time when I was running from God was out of fear of both the unknown and fear that God wouldn’t love me anymore. I believe when we really chose to follow Jesus he can release us from the prison of fear. We underestimate the power of the holy spirit in our lives and forget that he is with us.

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 1:6-9 “For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you…for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus.”

We all have times we fear but when that fear holds us back from following Jesus and sharing him with the rest of the world maybe it’s time to leave it behind. We have to surrender our fears, our excuses and trust that the things that we lack God has in control. Don’t let fear hold you back. We have to be committed to not hiding God from the Next generation we have to pass it on.

Third, We are all Called to pass it on. I believe whole heartedly that we are all called to pass on and share in our experiences with others. I believe following Jesus though it is an individual choice we each make it isn’t a singular or selfish thing. We who truly choose to follow Jesus, we who say we want to be his disciple, our experience with Jesus it should transform our lives into being about other people.

Passing it on to the next generation starts with our commitment to follow Jesus no matter the cost and in everything learning to love. It troubles me sometimes when we boil Christianity down to being about “me getting to heaven and me being saved”. Life is not about me.

The greatest lesson that I ever learned from my mom was that “life is best spent serving other people”

I believe the greatest way that we can introduce people to Jesus is by loving them wholeheartedly. People are watching us because they want to see Jesus. The next Generation is watching because they want an example to show them what it means to truly follow Jesus.

People will know that we follow Jesus by our love, not by our building, not our programs, not our VBS, not by the name on our sign, or how we use to do things. People will know we follow Jesus by the way we love them in the present, in each moment of this life that we have. They will know that we follow Jesus when we can share our experience with Jesus with them.

Our fresh new purpose statement here at Cedar Square Friends Meeting is “Loving God by Serving all People”… this is what we want people to see and know us by. We we are all in, loving God with all we have it means we are passing on that love to everyone we me. You and I are the Next Generation of Christians and we are all called to pass it on.

I had a professor in college tell me “Caleb, the next generation is the generation before, the generation after and the generation you are in. They all were a next generation at one point or another and they need sometime to pass the gospel to them.”

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

 

 

 

We Are Not Of Those Who Shrink Back…

“But we are not those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved”

– Hebrews 10:39

In Jerusalem the crowds had gathered from all around the Roman Empire to celebrate passover, some had traveled for days or weeks before reaching the city walls. Some had come for religious reasons, some simply out of tradition and others just to see and partake in the excitement of being in such a place with so many other people or because they were told “Jews like to party”.

On Easter sunday the crowds will gather again much like they did two thousand years ago. There will be those who have traveled across the states, those who took extra vacation time just so they can be with family. They will file into church wearing the best of whatever they own, some come for what they consider religious reasons, others will come for the sake of an age old family tradition and still others come confused with how chocolate, baskets and bunnies have to do with the once a year church visit that is awkward, boring and often feels meaningless.

Back two thousand years ago, to those outside of the Jewish faith the passover was just a time when everyone ate nasty yeast-less bread and rehashed the story of how Moses led them out of Egypt. It carried little meaning to those who did not understand the significance of how God had led his people out of slavery and toward the promise land. I imagine the routine of the passover became mundane and faded to just something families did every year. It lost it’s meaning even though the story was told. Even in my own life I have been guilty of showing up on Easter morning bored and uninterested. There are times I’ve felt offended by the fact that people are more fake about their faith on Easter and Christmas than any other time of the year. It’s as if they do not choose to believe any other time.

Following Jesus is not a once a year thing.

In the crowds of people that had gathered in Jerusalem for the passover there were those who had come because they believed this was the time that Jesus was going to rise up as their fearless leader and over throw the Romans. There were those who had followed him simply because he healed them or satisfied their hunger. There were those who followed just for the excitement of the crowds that seemed to be amazed by him. But there were a few who really believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the savior of his people. Not a savior over Roman oppression but a savior over sin, guilt, shame and separation from God.

For those few who really truly believed they were going to quickly learn that following Jesus was not going to be a once a year thing, it was not going to be an easy thing and it was not always going to be that exciting either. When Jesus was arrested the people that were following Jesus seemed to shrink. There were those who had shouted “Hosanna in the highest” when he had entered the city but found themselves screaming “Crucify Him” by the end of the week. There were those who wanted to follow Jesus when it seemed safe, comfortable and the popular thing to do, but when things changed they were quick to shrink back and run away.

People are no different today as they were two thousand years ago. There are still those who only follow Jesus because he healed them or satisfied their hunger, there are those who think the crowds that gather on Christmas and Easter are exciting, and those who come once a year because they respect anyone who does something to cause a holiday.

But who are we.

Who are we in this story. I love how the writer of Hebrews speaks of the supremacy of Christ and assures his reader that Jesus is the son of God. He reminds them of why Jesus came to live and died and rose again. Then he goes on to speak of those few that continued to believe in Jesus after many had given up…

“Remember those earlier days after you had received the light, when you stood your ground in a great contest in the face of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution; at other times you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You sympathized with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property, because you knew that you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised… But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who believe and are saved.”

• Hebrews 10:32-36,39

After Jesus death and resurrection it was still not easy to follow Jesus. There was no once a year follower of Jesus. It was either all in or all out. The risk was high and the cost was at times your own life, yet there were those who did not shrink back. When Jesus was crucified there were many who just gave up, they shrunk back, he did not do what they thought he was going to do so they gave up on him. I believe there are those who think they are following Jesus, but know nothing about him and there are those who as they get to know him and everything he did they choose to leave him, but we do not have to be those people.

We have a choice to follow Jesus everyday, learn more about him not for the sake of knowing facts, but for a relationship with him.

The early followers of Jesus did not always know what they were going to be getting into or what God was calling them to do, however, they made a choice to follow any way. Following Jesus is a learning process. It takes time, we have no need to shrink back or throw away our confidence. For those who believe we have ten thousand reasons to tell the world about Jesus. There will always be those who only come to church on Easter or Christmas, but there is no reason that that should be the only time all year that they hear or see Jesus.

 

We are not of those who shrink back from carrying the good news to the world. The good news of love and hope. The world two thousand years ago was in desperate need of hope and an example of love. Jesus calls us to carry that same message to our world that is longing for some hope and is often confused about love. We need to remind those who believe that we are not of those who shrink back.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Awake and I Am Still With You

“How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.”– Psalms 139:17-18 (ESV)

Are not God’s thoughts far greater than our own? Are not his ways better than our own?

As I awoke this morning with a pounding migraine, I felt frustrated and alone, I found tears damed up in my tear ducks and ready

to overflow like the flooding of Jamestown, Ohio, but they came slowly, quietly like a refreshing mountain stream flowing from the cool cold rocks. I tried to forget my loneliness and pain in sleep only to wake minutes later to what sounded like a canon going of

in my head. Migraines are one of the most annoying inconveniences in life and only slightly worse is the empty nulling of loneliness.

In the garden of Eden God said, “It is not good for man to be alone”… I wonder if Adam woke with tears and migraines before Eve came along. I am sure Adam felt pain, I hate waking up alone and when I have someone to miss it is as if that pain is magnified even more.

However, now I have peace though in pain, hope though I am lonely, and love I am sure will never leave me. Reading Psalms 139 was my reminder this morning that God made me, He knows me better than anyone yet he wants to know me more. In verse 18 it says, “I awake, and I am still with you.”

Though we may be physically alone and our hearts hurt with loneliness we sleep and we wake and God is still with us. That should blow our minds, that his presence never leaves. He holds the very fabric of our being together and he is still there. I need to know that and be reminded of that often. When I am falling apart he holds me. He is still there.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 51 “A Year Of Thoughts”: Worry, Why Worry?

Jesus words in Luke of how we cannot even add a single hour to our day is followed by Jesus statement “Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?”.

Why Worry?

I found myself stressed and worrying today but when I expressed that to my roommate he pointed out that the chapel message last week was over this passage in Luke.

Why I worry?

Because often I lack the trust and confidence I really need but when that fades I find that God can be trusted more than I believe and his confidence and plan for my life is far greater than my own.

Why Worry?

I have no need to worry, for God has taken my heart and kept it beating, taken my voice and gave it a song to sing, breathed into my soul to make it sour and he provided my every need to this point so I trust that he will everyday forward.

Why Worry?

God holds the whole world and still loves you. He’s writing your story. Allow God to lead you, feed you and clothe you. Worry wont give you any of that. I resolve to express my worries to the Lord and trust he will provide.

 

Read Luke 12:22-34

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 43 “A Year of Thoughts”: Faith Moves You to be Crazy

 

Today in church Pastor Donnie talked about Noah and how he was crazy. Crazy in a faith that moves, kind of way. Noah didn’t just build a small boat for his family, he built a boat for every kind of animal, crazy big boat, it’s crazy. God asks us to have crazy faith, Noah is not just a kids bed time story, It’s a crazy story of how God love us and by faith moved Noah to do something crazy.

 

 

I want to do something crazy in my life, God has already has, and he keeps on.

 

Are you crazy enough to build a bigger boat than will hold your family?

 

Crazy enough to spend a hundred years building it?

 

Or a life time?

 

Start dreaming big God size crazy awesome dreams.

 

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 30 “A Year of Thoughts”: Take a Walk

“Enoch walked with God; then he was no more because God took him away.” – Genesis 5:24

“Before he was taken, he was commend as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God’ because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.” – Hebrews 11:5-6

On many nice sunny days and warm evenings I really enjoy taking walks through town and down the country roads. But those walks are best when I can share them with someone else. My best friend and I like to get out of town and walk through the fields.

The wind whistling in every direction, the tall dried grass clapping as if a parade were in line, the clouds making shapes like dragons or horses in the sky and the sun slowly setting to the west. The walk is full of adventure, excitement, long conversations and meaningful silence. The birds catch our eyes as they float and turn like synchronized areal swimmers. Our shoes kick up the dirt with each step we take.

Sometimes when we walk we don’t have a certain place to we have to go or anywhere to be. We are simply taking the time to walk together, to experience the day together, to get away and see that there is to see. On those walks we learn a lot about each other, we learn how ti slowdown, to skip together, to run, to sit, to stand and to pause to take in each moment like it might be our very last.

It’s walks like this with my best friend that I picture Enoch walking with God. As if they are best friends experiencing each step together. Seeing the world, God created, together. Each step of theit walk more intimate, God learning how Enoch sees the world and Enoch experiencing little by little the presence of God. A walk hardly a walk without a little conversation, the ones with Enoch and God are long and meaningful but not without pauses and silence that carry just as much meaning.

Enoch lived his faith, he walked with

God, he didn’t just practice the presence of God he got to experience it.

I long for me life to be like Enoch’s. For my faith to move me to daily walk with God, daily grow to know his presence more, to learn him, to be intimate with him, to hear and listen and have long conversations.

The story of Enoch is one of hope. Hope that through the weariness of our souls longing to walk with God, that God is already walking with us. Sometimes we have to wake up, open our eyes and see that God is right there, Maybe you should take a walk, get out of town and talk to God, he’s right there.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 27 “A Year of Thoughts”: A Sweater and Mr. Rogers

Every time I put on a sweater I am reminded of Mr. Rogers

I put on a sweater today therefor Mr. Rogers was in my thoughts…

For many of us that grew up in the 90’s Mr. Rogers was iconic, A HERO.

As I child I remember watching Mr. Rogers and thinking he was the coolest old man ever.

He always had something to say that made me think and helped me learn.

A few years ago I read a book about Mr. Rogers by Amy Hollingworth titled “The Simple Faith of Mr. Rogers.” I learned a lot about my childhood hero and his deep faith and the love that he tried to show through his children television program. Mr. Rogers wasn’t just a man who wore a sweater everyday, had a train set, happened to share life lessons in a way that any kid could understand. He was a man who knew the importance of teaching love and being a neighbor.

In a sense I want to be like Mr. Rogers.

I may not have a Television show or wear a sweater everyday or have three degrees, or any of the many other things he did but I want to be a neighbor and I want to help people learn to love.

Simple faith can move mountains, simple faith can change the world, simple faith shaped the man that was Mr. Rogers.

Next time you put on a sweater think of Mr. Rogers.

-Caleb Ross Hunter

Day 8 “A Year of Thoughts”: Discontent? Well Good Let it Move You.

For the past month I have sorta been lazy and a little discontent about that laziness. Every time I would watch a basketball game I would get excited and want to play again. In close games my heart rate would go up and I would wish I was back on the bench supporting my team and coaches.

One of the earliest pictures I have of my childhood is me standing in dad’s shoes shooting the basketball into my fisher’s price hoop. I grew up in the Hoosier state which is known to be the heartland of basketball. For years I lived and breathed basketball. I slept with a brand new ball in my hands in sixth grade and dreamed about playing for championship every night. The game was taught to me at a very young age and after three tries to make a traveling club team in 8^th grade I made it. Three years later my team went on to win both a state and a national invitational championship, and when I walked off the court of the national championship I made the decision to move on from the sport and peruse other things. I gave up playing for the final two years of high school. That was over six years ago now, yet the game is still in my blood. I can’t remove the teaching that I received as a kid, I can’t look at the game through anything but a coaching lenses, I can’t step back on the court and not feel a little confident that I can still shoot the ball.

When I was playing basketball I always wanted to hit every shot. I wanted to be ready for anything. I spent hours on my shooting form, making it perfect (yet the whole of 140 pounds of a 6′ 3” man that I am now still would just get pushed around out on the court, so it had to be perfect). But as much as I knew the game and as much as I was perfect at the little things I wasn’t that great, I’m still not great. I grew discontent, I had made basketball such a huge part of my life and when I finally won my championship (from the bench mind you), I allowed that discontentment to move me to a place of changing and finding ways to make my life more full of things that I believed would help me grow.

For most guys growing up in Indiana, basketball is something that they are born with yet it’s not for every guy. Unlike basketball though I was reminded today by Donnie Hinshaws sermon that we are all born with faith. It’s a gift that God has given us to propel us forward in hope.

I have always had faith in basketball…

That may sound like a silly statement, because it really is kind of a silly statement, but for me growing up it was true. I may not have always had that great feeling of having faith in God and trusting that he knew what he was doing. But I sure had faith that my favorite teams could win ever night, I had faith my 3-pointers were “Boom-babies” every time just like Reggie Miller back in the day. However, my understanding of faith today grew in a way that changed things.

See when we accredit God with giving us our faith then nothing we can do will earn that faith. Faith is a gift. I know you can’t work for salvation and we are saved by grace, but faith is not something we tweak in our form, or practice over and over until we are perfect at it, either. Faith is nothing like being taught as a kid to play a sport. Faith is a real part of our lives, God is waiting for us to live with Faith, to awaken what he has already put within us. To trust him knowing that he knows what he is doing. To hope fully in what God has for you.

Donnie said this morning, “To hope in something means the state of life you are in is a state of discontent”

To hope is to be discontent, to know that there is more and a way to live that is different then the one we are in. Discontentment is not a sin. Discontentment should move us to a deeper faith and hope in God. I think this is why faith is always seems to be growing in our lives, why theology is expanding as we are moved to learn and experience more of what God is revealing of himself to us. Why the closer we get to God the crazier and more awesome life seems.

I have a hope that lives can be changed. I have a hope I can learn to love. I have hope and faith that God can do the impossible. My discontentment moved me away from basketball because I had a hope that my life could be more than a sport. I have had discontentment in my heart for the next generation, for my own life, for the future, for I have faith that God can do more than what we are dreaming.

If God can take my little insignificant dream of playing a sport I loved for 16 years and winning at it come true then I have faith God can give me even bigger dreams and complete those a thousand times over. I’m not content with settling for less. I want to take risks and live by faith for hope holds my future forever in God’s hands.

Basketball maybe in my blood and I may never get it out now. Faith is in my heart and it’s pumping through all that I am. My heart is discontent to settle for anything but living life full of faith…

Sometimes we have to walk away from things to pursue in faith what God is leading us too.

Just read Hebrews 11 it’s a list of men that lived by faith, they did crazy things, they risked everything, and they walked away from a lot. But will you? Will I?

Heck yes I will.

-Caleb Ross Hunter